A Proverbial Christmas
by A Nonny Cat
Summary: Short Jack/Daniel friendship story (not slash). Christmas is the backdrop but it is not really Christmassy. Jack doesn't want to go to the Christmas party and Daniel tries to find out why. Reviews very welcome (still new to this so keen to learn).


Daniel tapped on the door and peered into his friend's room. Jack lay on his bed in an unconvincing attempt at feigning sleep.

"You coming?" Daniel asked.

"Nope." Jack replied, eyes close.

"General Hammond is expecting you."

"And?"

"You missed it last year."

"Yup."

"So you should come."

"Nope"

"But…" Daniel protested.

Jack sat up and cut him off with a swipe of his hand. "Daniel, no one is going to notice if I'm not there."

"Uh..Teal'c will notice." Daniel disagreed, "and Sam" he added pointedly. Jack's expression didn't alter. Daniel changed tack.

"There's mulled wine."

Jack made a face "Too sweet too spicy – can't stand the stuff."

"Mince pies then" he persisted.

"No."

"Teal'c in a paper hat, Sam under the mistletoe" Daniel said, resorting to gentle teasing.

"Daniel!" Jack massaged his temples with a frustrated air. He looked at his friend in exasperation. "No. Just no. Christmas – not a fan. Food – fine, drink – fine, friends – great, having fun – all for it. But this whole 'have a great time **because** it is Christmas' - not my thing."

Daniel leant against the door frame and grimaced at Jack. He understood where he was coming from, but was confused by Jack's stubborn refusal to have even one drink at the party.

"Don't you think that you might be missing the spirit of Christmas?" he asked a little huffily with a slight frown. "It isn't all about superficiality and forced fun."

"Dammit Daniel!" Jack interjected roughly "don't tell me that you believe all that Bethlehem mumbo jumbo?"

"Believe no, value yes" Daniel replied seriously. He folded his arms across his chest and looked steadily at Jack. "I value what the story represents."

They had been over this ground before; he and Jack had never seen eye to eye on myths. Daniel hoped that for once Jack would leave it at that, he didn't want an argument now, but his friend cocked his head to one side in a gesture that was at once inviting and sarcastic. His eyebrows arched upwards as he asked dangerously "and what does it _**represent**_?"

Ignoring the edge in his voice Daniel replied with spirit, "Hope, forgiveness, second chances, the powerful giving up their status to benefit the weak. Humility, courage, triumphing against the odds." He drew breath and fixed Jack with a meaningful stare. "All the values that we stand for."

"Really?"

Jack's tone was angry and bitter. Daniel looked at him quizzically, puzzled and with a sudden uneasy feeling that this was about more than just objections to forced jollity. Crap! With an abrupt realisation he knew where this was heading. Jack swung himself of the bed and squared up to Daniel, his dark eyes flashing.

"'Cos from where I'm stranding it's about a father who should know better sending his innocent son to die. That's the message that I get from Christmas."

Daniel swallowed hard, not knowing what to say, and stared at Jack with understanding. "Jack…" he began his eyes bright with compassion. But Jack was in no mood for talking and with a final angry glare he stalked past Daniel and out of the door.

"Jack!" Daniel said again in pleading tones but he knew better than to try and to physically hold him back. He sighed heavily and dropped his chin to his chest as Jack turned the corner without a backward glance. Daniel swore quietly to himself. He should have played that one better. He should have known. Hell, he thought savagely to himself, he of all people should have known. He knew only too well what it was like to be the one standing awkwardly watching other people's families having fun and trying to smile benevolently while aching with longing for what he was missing. He had felt the stab of emptiness as he signed his Christmas cards with just his name and thought of what might have been. And for all that in a way he was fortunate. He had celebrated many Abydonian festivals with Sha're, but they hadn't actually ever had a Christmas together. New relationships could never fill the void, but at least they didn't have to re-negotiate Christmas or tiptoe through a minefield of past traditions. For Daniel, Christmas wasn't full of the ghost of Christmas past in the way it must be for Jack. At least, he corrected himself, not full of recent ghosts. Briefly he let his mind drift back to his memories of Christmas in Egypt; the sound of his parents' voices, his own excitement, the happiness. Enough time had past that he could enjoy the memory for what it was without being dragged down by nostalgia but it had taken years to reach that point.

He turned and set off down the corridor in the direction Jack had gone, determined to find him.

* * *

><p>Eventually Daniel found Jack sitting outside on the frozen ground, leaning up against a tree. The older man must have heard Daniel approach, but he didn't acknowledge him.<p>

"Jack?" Daniel called out questioningly, walking cautiously towards him. He didn't want to intrude, but neither did he want to leave Jack facing his demons alone. Mostly he wanted to make amends for his thoughtlessness earlier.

"I .. um..I brought you a drink."

The hunched figure didn't move but neither did he tell Daniel to piss off.

"It's beer." Daniel added hopefully. He held out the bottle and Jack took it wordlessly with the merest hint of a nod of thanks. Daniel stepped back, giving him space and perched a short distance away. He shivered in the cold night air and noticed that Jack was in shirtsleeves. Damn he should have thought to pick up Jack's jacket as well as the beer.

Jack took a long swig and rested his wrists on his knees, the bottle hanging loosely in his fingers. He still didn't say anything and Daniel was glad that it was too dark for him to see his face. After a while Daniel drew breath to break the silence, thought better of it and stared up at the starless sky instead. Cloud obliterated the scale of the galaxy and even the moon was no more than a grey smudge behind heavy wisps of inky sky. Finding the words was hard but eventually Daniel took another breath and turned towards the dark shape that was all he could see of Jack.

"There's an Abydonian proverb" he said slowly "I can't translate it exactly because we don't have direct equivalents for some of the words but I can give you the rough idea."

Jack gave no indication that he was listening but Daniel carried on regardless, used to one-sided conversations. The familiar words took him back to Abydos and the smiling figure of his wife as she had first spoken them to him in her lilting tones. She had laughed at his fumbled attempt to make sense of it; to interpret words that were archaic even to Sha're herself, and he had enjoyed her amusement.

"_A feast on arrival cannot make you forget a tiresome voyage, but a journey of friendship, laughter is treasured even when it leads to a mirage_."

He paused, lost for a moment in the memory. Over time it had become their motto, spoken whenever times got tough. After Sha're's death Daniel and Kasuf had comforted each other with those very words. Daniel dragged himself back to the present and rubbed his palm awkwardly, wondering if he should explain the imagery to Jack. It lost some of the nuance and poetry in translation but the sense remained. "I guess what I'm trying to say is that … that… a bad ending can't take away from a good life."

"Seven years." Jack said quietly. "Just seven years."

"Seven good years" said Daniel, equally quietly. "Seven good years of family, friendship and laughter." For a split second he had another vision of his own childhood but, pushing it away, he chanced another glance over at the figure beside him. "The ending can't take that away Jack."

Jack stood up so suddenly that for a moment Daniel thought that he was about to strike him and he wouldn't have been entirely surprised if he had. Instead Jack strode round behind Daniel and hesitated for a moment before patting him awkwardly on the shoulder in an indication of both reconciliation and thanks.

Daniel smiled crookedly to himself in the dark, relieved that Jack understood what he was trying clumsily to say. He stood up with difficulty and reached into his pocket.

"Actually, I er… I got you a present. Not wrapped. Here." He opened his palm and held out his hand to Jack. Realising that it was too dark for Jack to see what he was holding, Daniel explained, still stumbling for the right words; "It's a … a… forever bond." Jack's silhouette twitched in the darkness, and Daniel laughed awkwardly, picturing Jack's expression. "It sounds less sappy in Abydonian."

Jack grunted and Daniel elaborated hurriedly.

"It is a tradition that if a person dies … um…before their time then the mourner will be given a bond to wear as a reminder of the link between them. It is made of engraved Jade. Jade in Abydos has some of the same associations that it does for the Chinese. It um…"

He tailed off and gently took Jack's arm and pushed up the sleeve. Jack didn't resist as Daniel wrapped the strap around his wrist and laced the ties tight.

"Tradition says that the bond must be made by a friend of the mourner" Daniel explained as he knotted the ties. "Kasuf made mine, I made this one for you."

"You can carve?" Jack said in tones of mild surprise, speaking for the first time. Daniel smiled to himself again at that gentle dig, taking it in the affectionate way that it was meant.

"Some."

It had taken him hours in between missions to mark out the apotropaic patterns and inscribe the letters. "It erm… has Charlie's name on it."

He pulled Jack's sleeve down covering the band and stepped back awkwardly, trying to read Jack's body language. There was another long pause. This time it was Jack who broke it.

"Do you have … plans?" he asked abruptly.

"Plans?" Daniel repeated, momentarily confused.

"Yeah- you know, for Christmas." Jack explained.

"No, not really" Daniel said, anticipating where this was going and rapidly deciding that Janet and Cassie would understand if he didn't join them.

"Come over to mine?" Jack offered awkwardly, adding hurriedly "if you like. No sweat if you'd rather not."

"Thanks Jack" Daniel replied simply "I'd like that."

"There won't be mince pies." Jack warned "or, you know, all that Christmas stuff. I got steaks and a log fire."

Daniel grinned "sounds perfect."

"There might be fishing." Jack added as a final warning.

"Jack" Daniel said quietly "I said I'd love to. Come on, let's go."

As they walked side by side in the darkness the words of the proverb echoed again in Daniel's mind; 'A_ journey of friendship…is treasured even when it leads to a mirage_._'_

Or, Daniel thought, when it leads to steak and fishing on Christmas day.


End file.
